


All the Single Vulcans

by pantswarrior



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Break Up, Crack, Drunkenness, Gen, Humor, Kink Meme, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-26
Updated: 2010-08-26
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:24:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pantswarrior/pseuds/pantswarrior
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kirk and McCoy attempt to cheer up Spock, who has just been broken up with. Spock is not initially sure that he appreciates their efforts... but the music may have its merits.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All the Single Vulcans

The worst part of the whole thing - worse than it happening right there in the rec room with a bunch of the crew watching, worse than the inevitable tension that was going to exist on the bridge from here on out - was the way Spock just stood there looking after her, Jim thought. Vulcans probably didn't get dumped every day or anything. Since they didn't seem to actually date or anything, Spock had probably never gotten dumped before at all.

Beside him, Bones let out a slow whistle. "Well. That was... something else."

Jim nodded to him and turned away, approaching Spock hesitantly - he couldn't just sit there and do nothing. "...Hey..." he began, placing a supportive hand on Spock's shoulder.

Before he could think of anything else to say, Spock brushed it off and left the room.

Jim looked back at Bones. "...I think he might be upset."

"Gee, Jim, you think?" Bones said sarcastically. "His girlfriend just yelled at him in front of half the bridge crew and stormed off. And the guy's only half-Vulcan, you know - he's not _completely_ heartless."

"Hmm." Jim pondered. "Do you think we should go talk to him?"

"Well, I don't know if he'd like it," Bones admitted. "Especially since I'm inclined to agree with some of Uhura's points. Only difference is, I don't have to deal with it because I'm not dating him."

"But we _are_ his friends," Jim pointed out.

"Are we?"

Jim gave him his sternest nod. "Yes, we are. And we're going to go cheer him up."

"Jim, the guy doesn't 'cheer up'," Bones protested, following Jim out the door. "We won't be able to tell if he's actually cheered up, or if he's about to choke you to death again."

But Jim was already on his communicator. "Hey, Scotty? If nothing's in danger of blowing up down there, could you do me a little favor?"

\---

Spock's mood did not improve upon finding the captain and Dr. McCoy at his door. "Do you have need of me, captain?" he inquired, stepping back to allow them entry.

The captain shook his head, grinning. "At ease, Spock. Bones and I just came to give you a little pick-me-up."

Spock's head tilted curiously. "...What is it, exactly, that you intend to do after picking me up?"

"Your _mood_, dumbass," McCoy growled, entering his quarters and plunking a bottle down on the desk. "We came to pick up your mood."

"As a Vulcan," Spock reminded them, "I am capable of-"

"Shut up and have a drink, Spock," McCoy told him, opening the bottle only to pour some of its contents into a glass the captain was holding out. "Maybe then you'll lighten up enough to talk about your feelings."

"We know you have them," the captain pointed out, almost apologetically, as he offered the glass. "We're not going to get on your case for having them, either. We're your _friends_, Spock."

Spock looked back and forth between the two of them. "If I am feeling anything at the moment," he stated, "it is irritation."

That feeling that he may or may not have been feeling may or may not have grown more severe when there was another arrival - Mr. Scott, with another bottle and more glasses, and even louder sympathies for Spock's situation, which he stated in a rather cheerful fashion. Apparently he'd been dumped in public many a time.

"But ye know what?" he finished, leaning forward as if to tell Spock a secret. "I canna mind so much. Oh, sure it might be nice ta be with a lady from time to time, but I have me work, and I have me hand."

"Too much information, Scotty," Jim mock-groaned, finishing off his second drink already.

Spock still held his, untouched. This did not escape the sharp eyes of Dr. McCoy, who gave him a look. "Didn't I prescribe you a good, stiff drink?"

"Alcohol does not affect Vulcans as it does humans," Spock informed him. "Nor would I find such effects pleasurable even if it did, and I find the taste of alcohol to be unpleasant besides."

"Oh. Right, Vulcan," Jim said absently, waving his hand dismissively. The effects Spock had mentioned seemed already to be taking effect on him, Spock observed. "Well. I know what to do about that..."

\---

A brief conversation on the communicator led to another arrival, this one unexpected only because of who it was. "...Sulu?" Jim asked incredulously as the door slid open. "Where's Janice?"

"She took off somewhere with Uhura just after you called," Sulu explained, hefting the stacked trays in his arms. "Apparently Uhura was having a bad night. So I said I'd take care of it for her while the two of them went... wherever they were going." And though Sulu tried to be sly, Jim caught that glance past him into the room, to where Scotty had given up trying to get a response out of Spock, who was seated unhappily on his bed. "Did they really..." Sulu asked Jim, lowering his voice.

"Yeah. Splitsville."

Sulu winced. "Ow."

"May I remind both of you that Vulcans have superior hearing?" Spock spoke up, but it was a half-hearted protest.

"Zen there ees no need to keep it zecret!" exclaimed another voice, from off to the side. "Meester Zpock, we have come to provide you weeth moral zupport!"

"And food, like you asked," Sulu said, standing aside to let Chekov through with the bottle he carried, smaller than the others present and made of plastic. He gave Jim a funny look, though, as he went to set his trays down. "Chocolate milk, though? That's an interesting combination."

"It's for Spock," Jim told them, pointing Chekov in the appropriate direction. "His Vulcan biology's different - we get the alcohol, he gets the chocolate milk, we all get toasted."

"Are you serious?"

"Hey, how do you know something like that?" Bones demanded. "I've never heard about this, and I'm his doctor!"

Jim thought back to messages he'd been exchanging with the new Vulcan colony. "Let's just say it's a tip I got from an old friend."

"Was not the objective to 'cheer me up', rather than cause me to become intoxicated?" Spock ventured to remind them all.

"Same difference." Jim shrugged. "Drink up, Spock." Everyone else was, including Chekov, who was already going on about how vodka was the best of liquors. Jim had thought, briefly, of restricting him to the chocolate milk as well, but... who was he kidding?

\---

Somehow, Spock's quarters had become the host of a slightly rowdy party, crammed full of people talking and laughing, more loudly as more alcohol was consumed.

Except for Spock himself, who had gradually moved his chair further and further into the corner, away from everyone else. His bottle of chocolate milk was in hand, but largely untouched.

To be honest, Spock feared what might happen if he allowed his guard down. His emotions were, indeed, in a precarious state. Nyota had been at his side since the destruction of his planet, helping him to cope. Though she was correct in pointing out that he'd never once said it in so many words, now that she had gone, he found himself truly entertaining the idea. Had he... _loved_ her? He had thought not, that he was incapable, but the thought of being without her warmth, her comfort and her smile...

"Hey." A nudge in his side from Dr. McCoy; Spock must have been preoccupied, because he had never seen the doctor coming. "How are you doing?"

"I am fine," Spock replied.

"Just wanted to let you know," McCoy told him, leaning down to rest an arm companionably on his shoulders - very obviously, he had already consumed several drinks - "it's normal to feel... uh... a lot of different things. Sad, and angry. Scared. When a woman leaves you, I mean." A glass was in his hand, and he lifted his arm from Spock's shoulders long enough to take another drink. "I'd know."

"I believe most human males do experience the phenomenon of a failed attempt at partnership several times during their life cycle," Spock noted. Perhaps if he humored the doctor, he would go away.

"No, I mean _really_," McCoy insisted. "I mean, I was married an' everything. Had a kid. And then she left me. Took everything. Wife left, I mean, not the kid. I mean, she took the kid too, but. Yeah. Everything." He nodded slowly, his expression grave. "So I know how you feel."

Spock peered at him, uncertain of how seriously he should take the doctor's sentiments in the condition he was in. Dr. McCoy was quite thoroughly inebriated, and unlikely to be useful when it came to solving problems logically. But on the other hand, this was an emotional problem, not a logical one.

Spock ignored his better judgment. "...If I may ask, doctor, how did you deal with it?"

"Well..." McCoy straightened up, unsteady on his feet. He looked as if the question had confused him. "I... guess I drank a lot. And joined Starfleet."

"I see." As Spock had expected, not helpful.

"Oh yeah!" McCoy added suddenly, brightening. "I listened to music, too. There was this one old song... late 20th century, maybe just after the century turned, somewhere around there... It was like they were singing my own thoughts. Funny, how things like that just don't change with time..."

Abruptly, he turned away and headed for the terminal on Spock's desk, setting his glass aside and pushing the bowls of snacks out of the way. "Hey, what are you doing?" Jim asked, as the glass he'd just set down there was also almost pushed aside.

"I got a song I want Spock to hear," McCoy informed him, then to the terminal; "Computer, this is Dr. McCoy - patch in my personal music library to this terminal. Password zero-two-one-four-foxtrot-uniform." Everyone stopped their chatter as they realized McCoy was doing something, and turned to look as the computer pulled up a list. "Yeah, I got a whole buncha songs for the occasion. But the best is this one here," he finished, scrolling down and tapping one. And then tapping it off again, because he'd missed. "I mean this one," he corrected himself as the intro began.

"Oh hey, I know this one!" Jim realized as the vocals began.

So you wanted to take a break  
Slow it down some, and have some space-

"Well, _fuck you too!_" the captain and doctor joined in enthusiastically as the song hit the chorus. "Give me my money back, give me my money back, _you bitch!_"

The song did not quite approximate Spock's feelings at the moment, though everyone else in the room cheerfully and drunkenly joined in on the chorus the second time around.

\---

McCoy's taste in songs about the end of a romantic relationship tended to be rather angry in general, Spock quickly learned. Not to worry, because now everyone else was patching their own music libraries into his terminal and discussing their favorite songs of the era. Which meant that they were leaving him alone.

He took a few more sips of his chocolate milk without their encouragement; the rampant illogic of this situation was beginning to wear on him. Occasionally the purpose of this gathering was recalled, as occasionally an appropriate song was chosen, but then Sulu and the captain discovered a mutual love of a band called the Beastie Boys, and Sulu had ingested enough alcohol to bellow about the right to party just as loudly as Kirk. Somewhere along the line, the helmsman also seemed to have misplaced his shirt.

Chekov, giggling, tried to bring the focus back with some older music, including one that he thought Spock might relate to, what with not feeling emotion; it resulted in an argument about whether or not either Simon or Garfunkel were Russian. "I Am a Rock" was deemed as unsuitable music for a party anyway (though Spock secretly found the harmonies pleasing), and suddenly Mr. Scott was up on the desk belting out "I Will Survive" with his empty glass serving as a microphone. It had not been empty when he began singing, but after all the thrashing around, it most certainly was when he finished. Spock was considering calling security to escort all of them out so that he could get some sleep, particularly when someone discovered a group called the Spice Girls.

"Oh! Ohhhh!" the captain crowed excitedly, pointing at the screen. "Yes! Spock's gotta hear this one. Spock, you gotta hear this one," he added over his shoulder.

"So I had heard," Spock said under his breath, and took another sip of his chocolate milk.

McCoy, at least, was amused. "How the hell do you even know that song, Jim?" he laughed.

"I dunno, I guess I heard it at that one club off-campus all the time?" Kirk poked him in the shoulder. "How the hell do _you_ know it?"

"Cause you dragged me to that club with you, asshole! Didn't know you were paying attention to the music."

"I was paying attention to the girls, and the girls were dancing to the music," the captain explained.

"Oh yeah..."

A much louder "Ohhhhhhhh yeah!" came from Sulu when the song started up. Chekov looked puzzled, mumbling something about how he didn't know this one, but Kirk was already off and singing.

"All the single ladies!"

"All the single ladies!" Sulu and McCoy echoed him, both rather off-key.

"All the single ladies!"

"All the single ladies!"

"Now put your hands up! Up in the club, we just broke up!" the captain sang merrily, waving his hands around. "I'm doin' my own little thang!"

"Oh geez, Jim, you know the dance too?" McCoy groaned.

"I told you, I was watching the girls," Kirk pointed out, pausing in his singalong. "Do you remember it?"

"I'm a doctor, not a-"

Sulu raised his hand. "Awesome!" Kirk exclaimed, and gave Sulu a high-five.

Apparently, Mr. Sulu lost quite a bit of self-consciousness when intoxicated, Spock observed. He was flailing around even more wildly than the captain, shaking his hips - and as the chorus began, both of them jumped up onto the bed, dancing... almost in unison.

"If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it! If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it! Don't be mad once you see that he want it! If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it!"

The next bit involved a lot of hand-waving, and Kirk laughed down at McCoy, who was doing it as well. "Get up here!" he exclaimed, pulling the doctor onto the bed with them, and despite his obvious inexperience, McCoy did in fact join in somewhat clumsily, taking his cues from Kirk and Sulu - even bending over and _spanking_ himself.

On the far side of the room, Mr. Scott was practically falling over from laughter, and Chekov's eyes were wide, his expression clearly stating that this was the most astonishing thing he had ever seen. Spock... was not sure he could disagree. The captain, helmsman, and chief medical officer strutting around in not-quite unison on his bed, singing at the top of their lungs... It was so bizarre, he realized suddenly, that his melancholy mood had indeed vanished.

His surprise was such that he raised an eyebrow.

"I got gloss on my lips," Kirk sang, gesturing in the vicinity of his mouth.

"Lips!" Sulu and McCoy echoed, striking a pose behind him.

"A man on my hips-"

"Hips!"

Spock found himself bobbing his head, just slightly, in time to the music. He took another drink of his chocolate milk, watching the show in thoughtful silence.

Mr. Scott could hardly breathe by the time the song ended, he was laughing so hard. Chekov, on the other hand, jumped up at once, applauding. "Keptin, can you teach me ze dance too?" he asked eagerly.

"Sure, get up here," Kirk invited him, with a wave of his hand. "Computer, replay the last track."

And it started all over again, now with Chekov hesitantly following the others' actions, adding his own "oh-oh-ohhh!" to the chorus.

Mr. Scott was howling, rolling on the floor, and Spock just... watched, his head tilted curiously to one side.

\---

Chekov was starting to get the hang of it, and the captain had tossed his own shirt off somewhere as well, when there was a buzz at the door. Mr. Scott had sufficiently recovered from his laughter enough to join in the dancing, though too unsteady to get up on the bed with the others, and that left Spock as the only one who could conceivably answer the door. "Computer, stop the music," he ordered, and there was a collective groan behind him as he stood. And wobbled, just a bit. Possibly he had had enough of that chocolate milk, but he was perfectly capable of answering the door.

The dark mood that his friends had banished returned at once when the door slid open to reveal Nyota. Everyone else inside seemed to feel the same way, as they instantly fell silent, except for Chekov, who was facing the other direction and still singing until Scotty nudged him, gesturing at the door.

"Hey..." she began awkwardly, and then glanced back at the rest of the room, mildly taken aback at seeing Scotty and Chekov, barely visible from her vantage point. "...I didn't know you had company. Maybe I should come back another time?"

"It is no concern," Spock told her. "They are my friends. As you said what you said previously in front of numerous others, there is no reason why you should not say anything you have to say now in front of others as well."

She bit her lip. "Listen... I know I didn't handle that so well... back there."

Spock's head seemed strangely foggy, making it difficult to think. "Then... you regret ending our relationship?"

"Well, yes and no," she explained, looking down at her clasped hands, then back up to him. "What I mean is... we have issues. And we've had issues all along. And I'm just not sure I can deal with them anymore, no matter how much I love you. And, I mean... it's not your fault, and I shouldn't have gone off on you like that. Especially not in front of other people. I'm sorry," she said, looking up to meet his eyes seriously. "I really am."

Spock was having considerable trouble deciphering what she was saying, aside apparently from apologizing. But for what, he was not certain. "Your apology is accepted; it would be illogical for two people who respect each other to hold grudges over a brief, singular breach of etiquette."

She smiled in relief. "Good. ...Good. I don't want us to hold grudges either. I mean, we still have to work together," she pointed out, gesturing in the general direction of the bridge.

"But we are not a couple any longer?" Spock inquired, just to clarify.

Her smile faded, and she shook her head. "Like I said, I know it's not your fault, it's the way you were raised. But I've known that all along, and it hasn't gotten less frustrating, so..."

"So you _are_ breaking up with me."

She nodded slowly. "...Yeah, I am."

It might have been because Spock had already spent a few hours coming to terms with the idea, and nothing at all had changed since her initial proclamation in the rec room, but Spock found that his emotional reaction to this confirmation was essentially null.

"I'm sorry," she added again, earnestly.

Spock considered his potential reaction. "In that case," he began slowly, "I believe there is one sentiment I must express to you. Sincerely." Spock raised his hand, his fingers parted in the well-known Vulcan gesture, and she nodded sadly, anticipating his words.

But instead...

"If you liked it," Spock stated, "then you should have put a ring on it."

Uhura's expression screwed up in confusion as he turned his hand over a few times. "Oh-oh-oh, oh-oh-oh," he finished.

The laughter and howls (and backing vocals) that erupted from behind him made Uhura jump. "Computer, resume play!" Kirk called out, and everyone began singing along again. "If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it! If you liked it then you shoulda put a ring on it!"

Uhura rolled her eyes and turned away from the door in disgust as the men inside began dancing again. And once the door slid shut, there was no one who could see Spock smile to himself.


End file.
